More details emerge in Seattle officer-involved shootings

Seattle Police Department officials divulged more details Wednesday about the two officer-involved shootings that occurred in the past few days, one of which killed a man in Sodo.

Detectives determined the man killed by an officer in Sodo on Monday night used a fake gun.

The Wednesday press conference hosted by officials came as part of the agency’s effort to be more forthcoming about the details of officer-involved shootings.

Interim Chief Harry Bailey is working to implement reforms to which the city agreed after a 2011 U.S. Department of Justice report critiqued certain officers’ excessive use of force.

Furthermore, a new police policy that went into effect Jan. 1 requires an Office of Professional Accountability representative to respond to the scenes of officer-involved shootings.

Andrew Law, 36, had an “armed and dangerous” flag attached to a protection order filed against him when officers responded to reports Monday night of a supposedly drunk man fighting with a homeless person and pointing a gun at passing people and vehicles, officials said.

Officers arrived just before 10 p.m. to find Law alone at a bus stop at First Avenue South and South Hanford Street, belligerent and brandishing his gun, reports say.

After police gave Law commands to drop his gun, he reportedly pointed the gun at the police.

Officer Jason Atofau shot him with a patrol rifle. Law was later pronounced dead at the hospital.

Witnesses saw Law fighting with a homeless man who ran away when Law brandished the gun, according to reports.

The gun was later found to be fake.

The first shooting this week occurred early Sunday in Belltown. A woman reported a man with a gun in a parking lot by a bar. The man reportedly pointed the gun at the head of another man and threatened to kill him.

Responding officers ordered the man to stop and drop the gun, but the man instead pointed the gun at the cops.

Police fired at him and the man and another man ran away. Officer John Huber hit the armed man in the buttocks as he ran away.

The man who was threatened by the gunman told police he had just been pistol-whipped and suffered cuts to his head.

The gunman is a 27-year-old man with multiple arrests and convictions in his history, but nothing that would legally prevent him from possessing a firearm, police said.

The gun, however, was loaded and reported stolen out of Kent.

Bailey said he was not concerned that the 27-year-old man was hit in the back while running away.

“When this officer arrived on the scene, this man was facing him,” Bailey said, adding that the gunman was “very lucky” he was not killed by the police.

Huber and Atofau are both on paid leave pending the conclusion of internal investigations.